Prime Minister's attack on social media unwarranted

Mr Speaker,
everyone watching these horrific actions will be stuck by how they were
organised via social media.

Free flow of
information can be used for good. But it can also be used for ill.

And when people
are using social media for violence we need to stop them.

So we are
working with the Police, the intelligence services and industry to look at
whether it would be right to stop people communicating via these websites and
services when we know they are plotting violence, disorder and criminality.

I have also
asked the police if they need any other new powers.

ORG has four broad concerns with attempts
to create new powers to regulate social media and private communications.

One: Suspension of services

Some people have called for
temporary suspension of services; David Cameron appeared to suggest
suspension of Facebook and Twitter in some circumstances (TBC). We do
not believe this should be given any
serious consideration. Clearly, a service will be used by people for
legitimate
activities, some of which will in fact be to mitigate or deal with the
problem
encountered. In any case, innocent people should not be punished for the
actions of others.

Two: suspension of user accounts

Telegraph blog today asks if the “tweets
must flow” and concludes
they should, as they lead to good results much more than bad.

We agree. It may be that, in exceptional
circumstances, a court may order an account to be suspended, because it is
being used for criminal activity, or to harass someone. However, the UK tends
to prefer private arrangements between the police and private bodies.

The coalition should resist calls for
police powers or private arrangements for account suspensions. They represent
the worst type of so-called “self-regulation” and could quickly lead to abuses.
Courts protect us from this.

Three:
security and privacy for users

MobileActive explains, in the
context of the United Arab Emirates and elsewhere, the security that
Blackberry’s offer, and why oppressive governments are worried by it.

Blackberry and RIM offer some protection
for most users, by scrambling communications in transit. Sometimes, they also
allow end users to encrypt communications.

Governments have powers to request
information from companies. Again, such powers need to be proportionate.
Serious criminality should be suspected and requests should be made through
courts. Currently RIPA has a purely administrative procedure, which does not
require any judicial supervision, for traffic data. This is in our view open to
abuse.

Perhaps even more dangerous would be any
proposals that would seek to undermine our right to use personal encryption
keys. Personal encryption keys can prevent companies and governments from
decrypting and viewing the messages.

In the UK, it is an offence under RIPA to
withhold your keys if they are needed to view material in a police
investigation. Court orders are not required, and there are insufficient
defences, which for example have led to mentally ill defendants being convicted for withholding keys.

Business, politics and free speech relies
on security and privacy. David Cameron must be careful not to attack these
fundamental needs because of concerns about the actions of a small minority.

The West have
been talking about supporting internet freedom, and oppose other countries'
government to control this kind of websites, now we can say they are tasting
the bitter fruit [of their complacency] and they can't complain about it.

New measures to remove web freedoms of any
sort will quickly be seized upon by oppressive governments to justify their own
actions. The UK should not be using the same methods as governments in China,
Bahrain or Saudi Arabia.

Making laws in haste, with limited analysis and information, to
deal with an exceptional problem is likely to create unbalanced laws and abuses of
our rights.

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